


turn my grief to grace

by victoria_p (musesfool)



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Gen, Introspection, Missing Scene
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-04-22
Updated: 2010-04-22
Packaged: 2017-10-09 02:11:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 556
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/81842
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/musesfool/pseuds/victoria_p
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sam knows that the possible outcome is more than worth the risk.</p>
            </blockquote>





	turn my grief to grace

**Author's Note:**

> So Rivka T. and I [**made a deal**](http://coffeeandink.dreamwidth.org/1054824.html?thread=14216040 #cmt14216040). Thanks to angelgazing for looking it over.

Dean hides it pretty well, but Sam can tell he's already (or maybe still--Sam doesn't know and doesn't think it matters) drunk. He spends a lot of his time drunk these days, not that Sam can blame him. Sam's nightmares are enough to keep him from sleeping through the night, and he can't even imagine how much worse Dean's must be, but the combination of alcohol and sleep deprivation has taken the edge off Dean's usually sharp instincts, though Sam will never say anything and Dean will never admit it.

Dean would say he puts the "fun" in functional alcoholic, but Sam knows the day is coming when Dean will stop functioning even at this diminished capacity. Maybe that day's already here--Sam tells himself it was the alcohol that kept Dean from figuring out Gary's deception for nearly a day and a half, and not that Dean doesn't even recognize him anymore. (Sam's still pretty sure Dean doesn't _know_ him, but that doesn't seem like such a bad thing anymore; given what Sam's learned about himself, there are times he wishes he didn't know himself either).

It's definitely got to be the reason he doesn't recognize the implications of taking Sam along on their little back to the future jaunt. Sam doesn't know if Castiel gets it, either--it's hard to tell what the angel is thinking--or if he agrees with Sam that the possible outcome is more than worth the risk and just knows better than to point it out to Dean.

Sam packs the duffel and braces himself. The sensation of moving back in time reminds him of the feeling of falling in a dream, the kind of dream that startles him awake, arms and legs flailing out to break the fall, heart stop-starting in his chest.

The world in 1978 is stranger and yet more similar than he would have imagined, and while he's waiting for Dean to check Castiel into the motel, he stares wide-eyed at the fashions, the cars, the people.

"I mean, the mustaches _alone_," he says when Dean comes back. Dean snickers and Sam feels something warm in his chest. Dean seems livelier than he has in a long time, the spark in his eyes not just the latest renewal of his constant buzz (or maybe being zapped by an angel has sobered him up).

Sam feels that spark himself; the knowledge that he's going to get to meet his mother for real, finally, makes him nervous in unexpected ways. Even if he ends up dead shortly after, atoms scattered to the far corners of the universe, it will be worth it for that. And to save the world, of course. Sam can't ever forget that, as much as he'd like to. He's not expecting any kind of miracle--he knows that the things he's done can't be easily forgiven, and that atonement is a process, not a destination. If he's lucky, that process will end with his death.

This time, he's sure Dean won't try to bring him back, and if Anna is right, Lucifer won't be able to. It's better for everyone that way.

Of course, he's never been lucky.

When Anna shoves a pipe through his chest, Sam doesn't regret it. He just hopes Dean will forgive him for leaving this time.

end

~*~

**Author's Note:**

> Title from Grace by Kate Havnevik.


End file.
